KEY POINTS:
There's a certain desperation in the theory being put about that low voter turnout can be attributed to over-complex ballot papers. The experts might as well blame the nasty-tasting glue on the flaps of the return envelopes.
Fussing about the mechanics of polling is rather missing the point
when nearly two-thirds of us seem to have ditched our ballot papers in the rubbish bin without even opening the packs they came in.
Ever the optimist, Manukau Mayor Sir Barry Curtis's explanation is that most of us are happy with the politicians we've got. The recent election-related Herald-DigiPoll surveys back him up, as far as happiness is concerned anyway. They recorded 84 per cent of Manukau citizens believing his council did a good to excellent job. Westies had similar levels of praise for their local governors, while Auckland and North Shore cities both scored in the high 60s.
A more jaundiced explanation comes from a friend who, admittedly, has been known to enjoy the odd stoush with city hall. "Perhaps people feel that there is no point in voting," he suggests, "because the names on the ballot papers aren't those of the bureaucrats who really run the place."
Looking back over recent Auckland City battles, he has a point. Think of a crisis in city politics in recent times and there at the centre will be an officer with a secret grand design. The last-minute decision to fast-track bus lanes up Queen St, the failed attempt to destroy the suffragette memorial in Khartoum Place, the controversial remodelling of the art gallery, the failed glass sculpture outside the Civic Theatre - all were officer-led.
It's a similar pattern in every local council in the country.
Perhaps if a certain number of these anonymous high-paid decision-makers were forced to go before the public to justify their decisions every three years, voter interest would jump. I bet the Queen St upgrade would have been well out of the way by now, and the dirty new Chinese blue-stone paving clean enough to dine off each morning, if the department heads responsible had been forced to justify themselves in the current poll. To keep the officials permanently on their toes, could I suggest it be left to politicians to decide which particular bureaucrats are to join them on the ballot paper - say three months out from the poll?
Good sport for the politicians and journalists, but would the rest of the world really care? The problem is, local government is just not sexy. Even our parliamentarians, who should be grateful someone else is at the coal face, treat their "local" equivalents with a certain disdain.
Take the much-heralded Royal Commission into Auckland Governance, proclaimed with great fanfare from Wellington back on July 30. Local Government Minister Mark Burton, with a strong shove from Prime Minister Helen Clark, painted it as the dawning of a new age. He even supplied a question-and- answer press release, just in case journalists dropped off during the press conference and forgot to question him. One question was, "When will the membership and terms of reference of the commission be established?" The supplied answer was: "The Government is giving priority to this and anticipates being able to make an announcement in coming weeks."
Eleven weeks on and we're still waiting. On Tuesday I sought answers from Mr Burton's office. As of yesterday afternoon, silence continued to reign.
The July 30 statement also announced "key deadlines" in "a programme of action," the first of which was August 31. By then, "the Auckland councils are to reach and sign agreement concerning the initial membership of the Regional Sustainable Development Forum and the scope and effect of the One Plan." The forum and the plan were both interim measures in the Government's plan to kick-start Auckland.
Six weeks past that deadline, no agreement has been reached. The cities have been given nothing to sign or even discuss. The regional council has debated it, but refuses to sign off without a change of name and wants the membership formula changed so that cities and districts get one vote apiece, rather than two for cities and one for districts. It's now been shelved until after the election.
If the politicians find it boring, is it little wonder the rest of us do as well?
